To understand why Iraq is imploding, you must understand Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki  and why the United States has supported him since 2006.

I have known Maliki, or Abu Isra, as he is known to people close to him, for more than a decade. I have traveled across three continents with him. I know his family and his inner circle. When Maliki was an obscure member of parliament, I was among the very few Americans in Baghdad who took his phone calls. In 2006, I helped introduce him to the U.S. ambassador, recommending him as a promising option for prime minister. In 2008, I organized his medevac when he fell ill, and I accompanied him for treatment in London, spending 18 hours a day with him at Wellington Hospital. In 2009, I lobbied skeptical regional royals to support Malikis government.

By 2010, however, I was urging the vice president of the United States and the White House senior staff to withdraw their support for Maliki. I had come to realize that if he remained in office, he would create a divisive, despotic and sectarian government that would rip the country apart and devastate American interests.

I read this, this morning. It is an excellent article and read. Maliki needs to go and sooner is better. He has used his position as a means to settle his grudges and hatred for Sunni and the former baathists. Until he goes of his own accord or thrown out the current situation will not settle down. Once it does, the marginalized Sunni tribes will kick ISIS to the curb . The Sunni and a fair amount of the Iraqi Shia are fed up with Iran’s hands in the country. Currently a moderate Shia leader in Karbela is urging with his tribal influence against the Mullahs call for rising to the call of Militia. At some point the west is going to need to kill the ISIS. But with only 20% ISIS as estimated in the Iraq group revolting, we need to be careful to stay out. The big mistake was by Obama and company not supporting Allawi. He’s a decent moderate, friend of the US (or was prior to zero. We should have got that status of forces agreement and kept 10,000 troops in Iraq, which would have been to our own benefit, as history is showing us.

I’m all for Sunni-Shi’a mutual destruction if they would really limit it to each other, but I think that disorder in Iraq (1) gives Iran much better prospects for moving toward a dominant role in the region, and (2) anywhere that large numbers of Islamist fanatics are schooled in fighting and terrorist techniques increases the chances that they will spill out into other countries over time, as Al Qaeda formed in Afghanistan etc.

I think we’d be better off seeing a stable Iraq that is not a puppet of Iran, but the time for that may already be passed. Obozo and company screwed the pooch, on this as in so many other ways.

Russia seems to be on a big hegemony mission - one can only imagine the way the Bear exerts its power if it is successful in its endeavors. Doesn’t seem to be any graceful path to follow so I’ll go along with your flow for now.

29
posted on 07/06/2014 2:12:41 AM PDT
by trebb
(Where in the the hell has my country gone?)

I mean Iyad Allawi is no Abraham Lincoln, but he’s leaps and bounds better than any other leader in the Arab world, plus it would have been good to see a democratic change of power there to shake things up.

So in 2010, Iran started throwing it’s weight around in Iraq. Maliki sided with Iran, and the Obama admin. turned a blind eye, although they were warned otherwise. Ok

Why does the Obama administration, along with the media, now pretend that Iran is going to be of benefit to Iraq and the US with a “new alliance”? I think if the media didn’t constantly regurgitate White House baffling talking points, things would make more sense.

Radical Islamic terrorists groups are tied to Hezbollah, which was formed and funded by Iran. The US government knows very well that Hezbollah is working throughout South America and Canada “America’s back yard”. Iran is dangerous, and suddenly the sanctions in place against Iran are meaningless as American defense contractors, and “green” energy companies are selling to Iran? Baffling doesn’t quite describe it.

Last week, the Times of Israel reported that senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett had been leading talks with Iran in secret for a year before the formal negotiations in Geneva this month. While the White House denied the report “100 percent,” the existence of back-channel talks has been confirmed by other reporting. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that President Barack Obama had “personally overseen” the talks.

no, as the article describes, he has kept himself in power by anti-democratic measures and LOST the popular vote in the 2010 election:

"[Maliki] coerced Iraqs chief justice to bar some of his rivals from participating in the elections in March 2010. After the results were announced and Maliki lost to a moderate, pro-Western coalition encompassing all of Iraqs major ethno-sectarian groups, the judge issued a ruling that awarded Maliki the first chance to form a government, ushering in more tensions and violence"

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